Who Doesn't Love a Summer Flower Garden?

Isn’t the color of these peonies wonderful? This just finished today, it will go in a show for sale next weekend.

The show is at the Christopher Farm and Gardens in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on Saturday, August 21, rain date Sunday, August 22. I will be there with all the other painters at 8:00 in the morning. You can sleep in and show up later in the day to visit the gardens, watch and meet the painters, and browse the indoor painting sale.

The gardens are not generally open to the public so this is a great opportunity to see them. Five hundred acres along a mile of Lake Michigan shoreline with 17 themed botanic gardens including an Asian Water Garden, a Cut Flower Garden, and a Conifer Specimen Garden. There is also a Peony Garden but those will be out of bloom by now so stop by the indoor sale to see my Peony painting.

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An Artist's Studio

In early June I spent a week in Door County walking in the parks, visiting art galleries, and painting. This is my painting of the cottage that I stayed in, named The Studio, because it was formerly an artist’s studio. It’s the first painting I have finished that I started plein air. I’m finding that it’s not the composition, as I had supposed, so much as the colors that are the challenge of painting from life.

By the way, did you notice how the cottage leans slightly to the left? So do I: I hold my head tilted to the left. That means my eyes are tilted slightly down to the left and, consequently, so are most of my painting. You just can’t help put a piece of yourself on the canvas. Now that you know you will start to see it all over my work.

While I was in Door County I visited a goat farm and dairy where I took almost 200 photos of baby goats only to find my camera card clean as whistle when I got home. I know I had them on there; I checked more than once. Clearly some gremlin got ahold of my camera and wiped the card clean. Ah, well. No goat paintings this year but I’ve got another chicken and one of a barn in the early morning light. You can see them both on the Oil Painting tab.

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Spring Into the Arts

It was an honor to be invited to participate in The Christine Center’s first year as a studio site in the Clark County Spring Into the Arts studio tour. It was my first show, the beginning of selling my art.

My life as an artist began at The Christine Center five years ago when I participated in a creative painting workshop presented by their resident artist, Gabriele Uhlein. By the end of the first hour I was hooked, drawn into a new world of color and shape and something else I can’t name. I came back for more of those workshops and then for the program on mandalas using colored pencils.

What I learned in those workshops changed my life. I started painting and drawing with dedication and enthusiasm. Since then I have been working with tempera paint in a buoyant, high energy, intuitive process, colored pencils in quiet, meditative work, and photography to explore composition and to capture the beauty of the world that I live in. Currently I am studying oil painting with James Hempel, a beautiful plein air painter and one of the best teachers I’ve encountered in my life.

That first workshop I took at The Christine Center was my personal Spring Into the Arts. This show was my spring into a new phase of my art: bringing it to you.

Go take a look at my recent work on the Oil Painting, Colored Pencil, and Photography pages on this web site. Maybe you, too, will be drawn in.

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I am going to donate 10% of my sales to a charity which supports hands on arts programs. My first donation, from sales at Spring Into the Arts, went to Arts @ Large in Milwaukee. Originally focused on school children, they are expanding their programs to bring the joy of visual and performing arts to all ages. Here are their core values -

We believe in ARTS 4 ALL
We value Life-Long Learning
We act with Intention & Humility
We are Good Stewards of our relationships and resources
We strive to treat everyone with Dignity
We operate with Grit
We believe in Beautiful Work
We are Playful But Not Childish
We go Beyond expectations

https://www.artsatlargeinc.org/

Hello everyone

A couple of months ago I decided that I wanted to get my colored pencil work out of their albums on my bookshelf and into the homes of other people. I had no idea how that was going to happen but I ordered frames, bought mat board and colored paper stock, and got to work. About two weeks into this I was invited to be one of the artists at The Christine Center for the Clark County Spring Into the Arts studio tour this year.

I had never done a show before so a couple of weeks before the studio tour I held a practice show and sale in my home. The response from friends and visitors at both the practice show and the tour was so encouraging that I decided to put this website up.

I make art because I love to. And I make it because I want people to see it, to own it, to have it in their homes and work place. I hope you see something here that draws you in, causes you to pause and say, “Yes, that.”

If you want to know when I put something new out here you can subscribe on the Artist, Art & Contact Page.

Be well everyone.